Spotlight

In no way do I condone this sort of behaviour. It is vile and I believe the full force of the law should be brought upon the perpetrators. But, having said that, you need to realise that much of what is coming to light now, is stuff that was done a long time ago. If you take a look at the 70's & 80's, it was a completely different time to now. People weren't as enlightened as they are now. If a child reported that kind of stuff, they weren't believed. People took the word of someone of social standing (not just Catholic Priests, but anywhere really where there was access to children) because a Priest/Teacher/Coach etc, just wouldn't do that sort of thing.

The leaders of the Catholic Church, are generally quite old as well. A lot of their belief network would have been formed when they were much younger men and while I find it abhorrent that it was covered up, I don't find it that surprising.

Let us hope that society as a whole today, can make it much more difficult for perpetrators to do this and/or cover it up, because try as we might, this is something that won't ever be eliminated, but hopefully it can be drastically reduced.

 

My Dad was Catholic. They told him that Mum had to convert and agree to bring us (future kiddies) up Catholic to have a Catholic wedding. He told them to jam it and never looked back. Thanks Dad!

 

As Skater just said, these things mostly happened in the 70s and 80s. The priests and others committing the offences were probably brought up within orphanages and were likely victimised themselves. The further back you go, the more this institutionalised crime was normalised. Remember the British children (orphans) who arrived in Australia during/just after WW2? Staff raping patients in Mental hospitals and homes for the disabled was the norm when I was younger - if I heard about it, surely everyone else did. One reason why these places have been closed down - too difficult to operate.

 

My points
(1) catholic church was worse than all other organizations because they systematically covered up abuse all around the world hundreds if not thousands of times.
(2) religious institutions are responsible for most abuse. As demonstrated by the findings of the royal commission.
(3) this is all still very relevent and is not "old news" because of the nature of abuse reports, as abuse is usually reported 20 or 30 years after it happens.
(4) for these reasons I believe the church still has a lot to answer for, and excuses like "it happened ages ago", or "others are doing it too", just dont cut it.
(5) the church facilitated abuse worse than any organization in history. Yet people still send their kids there. If any non religious organization did the same then it would mean the end of that organisation. Imagine if it turned out that Macdonalds was an organized pedophile ring. Where management built all those playgrounds to give pedophiles an opportunity to abuse kids and then covered up all the abuse and management were also doing the abusing. And they did this thousands of times all around the world. Would there still be a Macdonalds tomorrow? Why is the church not held to the same standard?

 

And I would say some pedo priests went into it knowing that it was a pedo ring, or at the least there is that element within it, and the people in charge tolerate it.
And imagine the number that haven't reported it.

 

Good post. And I agree. It seems though that the Catholic church is the biggest sinner when it comes to failing to stop it.

 

It was not only the Churches , Police and politicians in the 1970's, 80's and 90's too especially in kings cross

I remember a club called Costello's , the former Mayor of Wollongong frequented back in the 80's.